New York City will reshape its $500 million workforce development program and force contractors to prioritize hiring city residents, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.

City officials said workforce development programs had previously not focused on enough skills development, particularly in burgeoning industries like technology. The mayor said Friday that his administration would train 30,000 people per year for “middle-skill occupations,” calling it another front in his fight against inequality. Read More »

Trader Mark Zifchak, right, works with his son Luke on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in April as part of the 21st annual ‘Take Our Sons and Daughters to Work Day.’

Reuters

A new study by City University of New York has found that men with children earned higher incomes than any other population group in New York City between 1990 and 2010.

Titled, ”The ‘Mommy Tax’ and the ‘Daddy Bonus’‘ the report used data from the Census Bureau between 1990 and 2010, adjusted for inflation in 2013 values, to look at the relationship between gender, income and parenthood.

The study found that men with children earned a higher median personal income than other population groups, including men without children and women with or without children. Read More »

New York City may be recovering from the recession with strong gains in number of jobs available, but a new study shows that more New Yorkers are getting stuck in low-wage occupations that offer little chance of upward mobility.

A report by the Center for an Urban Future released Thursday showed the number of New Yorkers working in low-wage jobs has increased over the last five years. In 2012, 35 % of New Yorkers over 18 worked in a low-wage occupations, up from 31.1 %in 2007. The national average for Americans is around 28%, according to the report. The percentage is especially high in the Bronx and Brooklyn, where almost half of employed adults are working in low-wage positions.

And while the number of jobs available is positive, when viewed against the cost of living in the city, a worrying picture emerges of “working poor” just scraping by, says director of the Center for an Urban Future, Jonathan Bowles. Read More »

Legislation that would require all business in New York City to provide paid sick leave for workers is back before the City Council. At a hearing this week, business groups opposed to bill clashed with public health and labor advocates over the measure.

At the heart of the sick-leave dispute: wildly divergent estimates of the costs city business will incur if the legislation becomes law.

A Journal report on the issue included these eye-popping figures from the opposition: “A new coalition spearheaded by the five borough chambers of commerce estimates that the bill would cost businesses $3 billion to $3.5 billion a year… [snip]…Marc Murphy, a restaurateur whose operations include Landmarc and Ditch Plains, said the legislation would cost his company $200,000 a year.”

The advocates — surprise, surprise — have different math. “They point to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed, in March 2009, the average cost for sick leave per employee hour worked for private-sector employers was 23 cents. For service-sector workers, the cost is even lower: 8 cents an hour, the report showed.”

Kevin Miller, a researcher with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, testified in favor of the sick-leave legislation. He puts the total cost of the legislation at a mere $332 million per year — less than 10% of even the low-end estimate from the five-borough Chamber of Commerce coalition.

So the two sides don’t just disagree over the costs of requiring paid sick days in New York City — the two sides disagree by an enormous margin.

To referee this dispute — albeit indirectly — we called the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Read More »